Giving Up and Not Giving Up
It's been an unusual first two months of 2021. Where there was optimism at the back end of 2020 that the following year would see a revival in fortunes, the reality soon became apparent that the new year was to be more of the same, at least for a while.
The first few weeks of January are traditionally quiet for me as companies and agencies get going again after the Christmas break. It also coincided with snow finally falling in Buckinghamshire. I'd jealously watched other photographers posting snowy scenes from further North while we had nothing.
As I qualified as a commercial drone pilot at the back end of last year it was a chance to get the drone out and photograph our village in the snow.
Happily, work started to come in quite quickly. The first shoot of the year was of the new Peugeot Managing Director Julie David at the head office in Coventry. Adhering strictly to covid procedures I was able to shoot some portraits within the office. Though I don't suppose she will ever recognise me unless I wear the same mask next time we meet!
There was more drone work in January for a charitable housing organisation and also for Vauxhall while shooting the changing of their emblem at the head office in Luton
Late January and early February saw trips to Warrington and Tunbridge Wells for executive portraits for the annual report of Arcadis. Again under strict Covid guidelines I was able to produce a range of images for the report. I never thought I'd say it but driving up the M6 and around the M25 was a real pleasure. A bit of normality after nearly a year of hardly driving.
Another source of income has been from stock photography. I belong to a couple of agencies shooting speculatively and selling on their sites. With the mornings being fairly clear at last, I have been getting up obscenely early (for me) and traveling up to East London to capture the sunrise over various landmarks.
There is something about London that always seems to produce a spectacular dawn. It takes a bit of checking on the meteorological websites and google maps and a fair bit of luck but I've had some beautiful mornings so far and hopefully these will be of interest and sell along with the 2000 odd other shots I have available.
So while the first two months have been particularly trying, especially when expectation mid-2020 was that this year would be so much better, I am definitely Not Giving Up. The green shoots are peeking through, both metaphorically and horticulturally.
So what about the Giving Up?
At the beginning of February I decided to give up coffee (from a 6+a-day habit) and for Lent have given up chocolate and snacks. After the amount of chocolate I managed to consume over Christmas I needed to take a bit of a break.
But rest assured I will be my normal happy self if you see me on a shoot between now and Easter!
The first few weeks of January are traditionally quiet for me as companies and agencies get going again after the Christmas break. It also coincided with snow finally falling in Buckinghamshire. I'd jealously watched other photographers posting snowy scenes from further North while we had nothing.
As I qualified as a commercial drone pilot at the back end of last year it was a chance to get the drone out and photograph our village in the snow.
Happily, work started to come in quite quickly. The first shoot of the year was of the new Peugeot Managing Director Julie David at the head office in Coventry. Adhering strictly to covid procedures I was able to shoot some portraits within the office. Though I don't suppose she will ever recognise me unless I wear the same mask next time we meet!
There was more drone work in January for a charitable housing organisation and also for Vauxhall while shooting the changing of their emblem at the head office in Luton
Late January and early February saw trips to Warrington and Tunbridge Wells for executive portraits for the annual report of Arcadis. Again under strict Covid guidelines I was able to produce a range of images for the report. I never thought I'd say it but driving up the M6 and around the M25 was a real pleasure. A bit of normality after nearly a year of hardly driving.
Another source of income has been from stock photography. I belong to a couple of agencies shooting speculatively and selling on their sites. With the mornings being fairly clear at last, I have been getting up obscenely early (for me) and traveling up to East London to capture the sunrise over various landmarks.
There is something about London that always seems to produce a spectacular dawn. It takes a bit of checking on the meteorological websites and google maps and a fair bit of luck but I've had some beautiful mornings so far and hopefully these will be of interest and sell along with the 2000 odd other shots I have available.
So while the first two months have been particularly trying, especially when expectation mid-2020 was that this year would be so much better, I am definitely Not Giving Up. The green shoots are peeking through, both metaphorically and horticulturally.
So what about the Giving Up?
At the beginning of February I decided to give up coffee (from a 6+a-day habit) and for Lent have given up chocolate and snacks. After the amount of chocolate I managed to consume over Christmas I needed to take a bit of a break.
But rest assured I will be my normal happy self if you see me on a shoot between now and Easter!